At the Feet of the Master

Sadhana

Sri Aurobindo was a magnetic dynamo, radiating his light and force to the sadhakas who sat round him, if they were only calm and receptive. Every evening, as I sat before him, I felt the force and light coming from him, with redoubled vigour and energy and it was always on the increase. I felt as if I was being rewound every evening at the meditation time, the given force to last till the next evening, to be reinforced again then with fresh force and light. The force was illimitable and I felt that the Master was an inexhaustible storehouse of Divine Force and Light. The light that he gave us lightened up the corners of the whole being and began to show the dark spots and tendencies and defects to be worked upon by the Force for change. According to one’s capacity, everyone received the divine blessings from the Master. Others also used to have similar experiences.

As the second year commenced, I wrote to my father-in-law, Sri N. Lakshminarayana Rao, that I wished to stay for another year and that he should console my wife and keep her cool-hearted. He was an orthodox Brahmin lawyer and emotional by nature. Induced by his friend and relations, he came to me along with my elder brother-in-law, Sri S. Narasimha Rao, to take me away from the Master. He saw me in heterodox surroundings, but he was blind to the radiating Light that was the Master. My efforts to convince him that sannyasa was not our ideal, and that Life Divine was the goal of our endeavour, were of no avail. My sparse living with bare clothing were misunderstood. The gist of the following aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo was explained to him: —

“Vivekananda, exalting Sannyasa, has said that in all Indian history, there is only one Janaka. Not so, for Janaka is not the name of a single individual, but a dynasty of self-ruling kings and the triumph-cry of an ideal.

“In all the lakhs of ochre-clad Sannyasins, how many are perfect? It is the few attainments and the many approximations that justify an ideal.

“There have been hundreds of perfect Sannyasins, because Sannyasa has been widely preached and numerously practised; let it be the same with the ideal freedom and we shall have hundreds of Janakas.

“Sannyasa has a formal garb and outer tokens; therefore men think they can easily recognise it; but the freedom of a Janaka does not proclaim itself and it wears the garb of the world; to its presence even Narada was blinded.

“Hard is it to be in the world, free, yet living the life of ordinary men; but because it is hard, therefore it must be attempted and accomplished.”¹⁴

Selfishness stood in the way of my father-in-law in understanding the truth of the above inspiring gems. He wanted to take me away somehow and wrote a strong letter accusing the Master for keeping me with him, and tried to preach Dharma to the Guru. I did not like to give the letter to the Master, but I was pressed to do so. I dared not give such a letter to the Guru, but sent it through my friend V. P. Varma. This letter spoiled the chances of an interview with the Master, sought for by my father-in-law and brother-in-law. There was no reply to the letter which must have gone into the wastepaper basket. Sick at heart, my relatives retraced their steps to their native places after finding that I was adamantine

in my resolve to stay on with the Master. After the departure of my relatives, Sri Aurobindo asked me after evening meditation whether they had gone and I told him so. For the time being, the disturbance was removed.

After going home, my father-in-law became desperately sick with typhoid fever and became bed-ridden and was on the point of death. My wife wrote pitiable letters about her miserable life and how she was ill-treated by kith and kin and others for being the cause of her father’s mental sickness. I prayed to the Master to spare his life and I learnt afterwards that my father-in-law turned the corner and was recovering from a relapse. After a couple of months, I got a letter from my wife that she would commit suicide if I did not go to her and pacify her father and other kith and kin. Seeing this alarming letter, even without taking the Master’s permission I left Pondicherry to see my wife.

Till 1937 when the first Congress ministry was ushered in Madras, Sri Aurobindo’s house was watched by the C.I.D. police and whoever came to see him was visited with troubles by the French and British police. So much so, Government servants were afraid of visiting the Ashram. Such was the fear of the British, even though Sri Aurobindo had left off politics long ago! He was considered by the British as the uncompromising enemy of the British Empire, even in his retirement. When I left Pondicherry for Madras, a secret policeman was dogging my footsteps and pointing me out to his relieving brother policeman at Railway junctions, and this continued till I reached Gooty, my destination, which is next to Guntakal, an important railway junction between Madras and Raichur, on the Bombay line. After I reached the place, the local Inspector of Police came to enquire with my father-in-law as to when I would leave the place and about my future plans etc. My people became alarmed at these enquiries. But I told them not to worry about the police, as I did not commit any political offence.

My coming was hailed by all persons and many gathered to see whether I was donning an ochre robe with a shaven head or growing matted hair and some heckled me with strange inquisitive questions about the Guru, his dress and aims and such things. I gave satisfactory answers. I was asked to seek some profession and live somewhere with my wife or take her along with me. I could not do either and told my people to wait for another year when I would oblige them with their wishes. I somehow pacified my wife and started to go after a couple of days’ stay. But, I was threatened with serious consequences if I went, by official and non-official friends of my father-in-law, who was an influential and leading lawyer in the place. I was irresistible and I started for Cuddapah, to see my sisters and brother-in-law. They were glad that I arrived at last, but felt sorry when I told them about my intended departure, the next day, to Pondicherry. The police, as usual dogged my steps till I reached the Master. When I left Pondicherry, my fellow-sadhakas told the Master that I had gone for ever, but the Master seemed to have remarked that I would be back soon. Was it not his Grace that landed me safe at his feet once again!

I now pursued the Yoga wholeheartedly, as there was no trouble from the hostile forces for the time being. The Master now showered on me some of the experiences of the Gita and the Veda. I was constantly seeing visions of Vedic sacrifice, and the truths embodied in the hymns of Rig Veda. The interpretations of the Veda given by the Master in his Secret of the Veda dawned on me in their full light and I saw how the commentators before Sri Aurobindo ignored the psychological aspect, and gave agricultural, ritualistic and astronomical interpretations of the Rig Vedic texts. Similarly, the cosmic vision of the Divine in the eleventh chapter of the Gita was not an imaginary symbol, but an actual fact that could be visualised, felt in oneself and seen in deep vision. I had intensely prayed to the Divine Master to reveal to me the Viswarupa, the great cosmic spirit, and it was granted to me. At the

end of this experience, I saw Sri Aurobindo in his effulgence and blazing glory, in my vision, and I felt that he was a divine incarnation. When I narrated these experiences, he smiled and said that he had them long ago. After this, visions galore I used to have of all kinds of worlds and planes, in my meditation, as if in an endless cinema show. I felt as if possessing a cosmic body with an infinite consciousness and I was full of peace and Ananda.

It will not be out of place to state here a few more of my experiences I was having at the time. The Divine Shakti began to descend with greater force into the head centres and below and an arrangement of molecular structure began to take place in the brain and the navel region. A kind of electric drilling was taking place in the head and there was felt the breaking of cells and loosening of knots in the whole being. Channels for the flow of Light and Force were being hewed out and what seemed to be metaphorical phrases when the Master wrote about the pouring of light and force, were becoming concrete experiences. As I sat before the Master for meditation, the whole being used to become numb as his Force began to work in me and fill my nerves with light and force. I felt as if he was transmitting his divine Force and Light into me. In his presence, the Force was felt intensely and it began to work in the body day and night and was omnipresent. A supramental being is one in whose presence “we feel ourselves in presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of personality, the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognisable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul, a Purusha,” as per the description of a gnostic individual, given by the Master in his magnum opus, Life Divine.¹⁵ The Master had become concretely that which he was describing above. We felt like pygmies in his divine presence. Full of oceanic energy, and not content with the heights he had reached, when questioned whether he had reached Supermind, he would say, “Not the highest level of Supermind.” The ordinary mind cannot conceive of the magnitude and nature of supramental status and consciousness, which had become his normal state then and he said that he had to come down to act on us, who were groping in darkness and half-light in the lower levels of consciousness. In one of his letters he says, “Even the little I have written, is not understood by the intellectuals.”

The Mother has said thus about the Master: “Sri Aurobindo incarnated in a human body the supramental consciousness and has not only revealed to us the nature of the path to follow and the method of following it so as to arrive at the goal, but has also by his own personal realisation given us the example; he has provided us with the proof that the thing can be done and the time is now to do it.”¹⁶

What inspiring truths Sri Aurobindo has revealed and what wonderful experiments in the realms of the Spirit he has made, like the Scientists in the external fields of Nature, posterity will know by degrees. He was far in advance of his times. Here are a few words of his exhortation culled from his book, The Secret of the Veda: “To enter into the very heart of the mystic doctrine, we must ourselves have trod the ancient paths and renewed the lost discipline, the forgotten experience. And which of us can hope to do that with any depth or living power? Who in this Age of Iron, shall have the strength to recover the light of the Forefathers or soar above the two enclosing firmaments of mind and body into the luminous empyrean of the infinite Truth? The Rishis sought to conceal their knowledge from the unfit, believing perhaps that the corruption of the best might lead to the worst and fearing to give the potent wine of the Soma to the child and the weakling. But whether their spirits shall move among us looking for the rare Aryan soul in a mortality that is content to leave the radiant herds of the Sun for ever imprisoned in the darkling cave of the Lords of the sense-life or whether they await in their luminous world the hour when the Maruts shall again drive abroad and the Hound of Heaven shall once again speed down to us from beyond the rivers of Paradise and the seals of the heavenly waters shall be broken and the caverns shall be rent and the immortalising wine shall be pressed out in the body of man by the electric thunderstones, their secret remains safe to them. Small is the chance that in an age which blinds our eyes with the transient glories of the outward life and deafens our ears with the victorious trumpets of a material and mechanical knowledge many shall cast more than the eye of the intellectual and imaginative curiosity on the passwords of their ancient discipline or seek to penetrate into the heart of their radiant mysteries. The secret of the Veda, even when it has been unveiled, remains still a secret.”¹⁷

Without a solid settled peace and considerable purification of the being, change of nature cannot take place. When one is being raised to the heights, one feels quite happy and there is a tendency to remain merged in the higher consciousness always. But Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is not to be in a state of “Samadhi” always. When the churning of the Nature starts, all the dormant troubles arise, the weak spots are shown and the ugly tendencies sprout up and all the adverse forces which want to prolong their reign resist, and a grim battle starts. Alternations of bright and dark periods intervene, and pessimism and despondency take hold of the sadhaka. It is then that one sees that the path of Yoga is like the “edge of a razor” fraught with dangers and difficulties. It is then that the Master’s guidance, his soothing words of hope and his healing grace will become invaluable. This phase of sadhana began for me.

With the commencement of the French Legislative Assembly, some members came from Chandernagore and some stayed with the Master. It was a festive time for us then in the sense that they would bring with them delicious sweets including the famous Bengali “sandeshes”, and we would have good feasts with them and lively talks about the happenings in Bengal and other places. The Master’s sister, Srimati Sarojini Devi, Motilal Roy, an ardent disciple from Chandernagore and his wife and others came in 1922, and stayed for sometime and went away. Sarojini was like Sri Aurobindo in her physical features, and was fair, sweet-tempered and cool-headed. S. Duraiswami Aiyar, an eminent advocate of Madras was coming now and then and participating in the evening talks and meditation whenever he came. He was a lovable, pure and devoted soul, known to the Master from his Surat Congress days, and greatly attached to Sri Aurobindo.

In 1922, Sri Aurobindo left his residence, 41 Rue François Martin, and shifted to another house close by, 9 Rue de la Marine. The former residence henceforth came to be known as the “Guest House”. The Mother, Datta, Barindra, Nolini, Amrita, Bijoy, Moni and Satyen removed themselves with the Master to the new residence. I remained behind in the “Guest House” in one of the rooms. Unlike the old house, the new house had a narrow verandah, where we used to gather as usual in the evenings from 4 to 5.30 p.m. Guests were usually lodged in the “Guest House”.

During this period, I was faced with a big problem. My father-in-law wanted to bring my wife and leave her with me. I did not know what to do. I had no money to keep her separately with me. There were no woman sadhakas in the Ashram then, besides Mother and Datta, and the Master had no funds to feed me and my wife at that time. My father-in-law wrote again saying that he would finance me

and wanted me to have my wife with me. I put this matter to the Master who consented to the proposal and asked me to live separately. So, my father-in-law came with his daughter and sister-in-law, rented a house in the Indian quarter and went away. For about two months I did not stay with my wife and [her father’s] sister-in-law, but was messing and residing in the Master’s Guest House. At the end of two months, my mother-in-law’s sister left Pondicherry leaving my wife alone. So, I had to go and live with her. As the house was far off from the Ashram, I rented another small house very near the Ashram for Rs. 10/- a month and began to live in that house with my wife. I tried to pull on with her in spite of economic difficulties. She began to learn English and to practise Yoga. For six months, Sri Aurobindo did not see her. But, I was telling him about her progress in sadhana now and then. After six months, she was permitted to have darshan of the Master. Thereafter she was allowed to see him once a week. She began to progress rapidly after she touched the Master’s feet, and got His blessings.

In the beginning of January 1923, Purani, Champaklal, Pujalal and Punamchand¹⁸ from Gujarat came and began to stay in the Guest House. Kanai Lai Ganguly¹⁹, also came about this time from Bengal. In April 1923 or so, W. W. Pearson²⁰ came from Santiniketan and saw the Master. On 5th June 1923, C. R. Das²¹ had an interview with the Master, and we learnt that there was a talk about the Swarajya party which was started by him.

Motilal Nehru²² joined this party and in Andhra Pradesh, Prakasam²³ started the daily paper, “Swarajya” and supported this party, which advocated Council-entry, as opposed to Gandhi’s policy of boycott of Legislative councils, in his political programme.